Do We Eat Dairy Cattle? What's The Scoop?

Kris emailed me and asked  "are dairy cattle used for table meat?".

Yes!

First, in reference to my previous post, cull cattle, both dairy and beef, are animals that were raised for the purpose of staying in the herd for years.

Bulls, Cows, and Heifers fit this category. Castrated males aka steers are raised to be butchered within 2 yrs of birth.

When a steer or even a heifer thats not going to be bred is fattened and ready to be butchered, the buyer can harvest it for all the cuts. Like steak, roasts, brisket, and then finally burger.

When a cull, a bull, cow, or older heifer is ready to be butchered through the auction barn they can only use it for burger. That is because people want a guarantee that they are getting what they are paying for and culls can be a tougher meat. 

For us, we mostly butcher cull cows. Many are going on 8 yrs by the time they leave for Almena Meats.

I do raise a few steers and that is where our steak and brisket comes from.

What we have learned since I started butchering cull cows is that there are actually several delicious cuts that we can select and add value to the animal above the price of burger.

If I can sell a 2# flank steak for $10/# instead of grinding it into burger at $7/#. 

Most of our flank, tenderloin, stew, roasts, soup bones, and brisket bacon come from cull cows.